LaunchCode begins placing programmers at South Florida firms
Square co-founder Jim McKelvey‘s nonprofit, LaunchCode, has begun placing South Floridians in programming jobs.
People who have studied computer programming in school or online can apply for South Florida apprenticeships at more than 100 companies, including Burger King, MasterCard, Telemundo and Zumba Fitness.
“We will eventually get almost every employer in South Florida,” McKelvey said Wednesday at LaunchCode’s kickoff event at Miami Dade College’s Idea Center.
The average LaunchCode apprentice is offered a job after one to three months, LaunchCode’s Miami expansion coordinator Mariana Rego said. She encourages programmers to apply for an apprenticeship by April 1.
Miami-based advertising agency República hired the first local LaunchCode apprentice.
“Many times we’ve had to move people from other cities to Miami,” CEO Jorge Plasencia said. “Well, shame on us if we can’t find the talent here.”
The agency hired Nate Beers, a 30-year-old former professional poker player who decided to kick-start a new career by completing coding training through Dev Bootcamp in San Francisco.
“I’d always had an interest in coding, and I’d done some in high school,” said Beers, who had been living in Tampa until he got the apprenticeship. “But I always kind of put it off.”
When Beers saw a tweet about LaunchCode from his former mentor at Dev Bootcamp, he decided to apply for a spot. Within weeks, he was placed at República.
“It was a perfect match,” he said.
If you haven’t studied coding, LaunchCode will point you toward affordable education options, McKelvey said.
Miami Dade College students can take LaunchCode’s free, 16-week programming course at the Idea Center. The class is based on Harvard University’s introductory computer science course.
McKelvey’s nonprofit has helped place about 130 people in programming jobs in his hometown of St. Louis, where the organization started in 2013. He moved to Miami last year in hopes of continuing LaunchCode’s success.
He said he started LaunchCode after he witnessed a lack of economic opportunity in north St. Louis, an area much of the country now knows as Ferguson.
McKelvey wanted to help grow the tech talent pool while forming a pathway to employment for people of all backgrounds.
“The biggest success [in St. Louis] was getting a guy who had been unemployed for 10 years — a veteran — his first job,” he told the Business Journal in October. “We got him off VA disability. We got him off welfare. He, for the first time in 10 years, is supporting himself and his dog.”
LaunchCode is not specifically designed to increase diversity in tech, but it’s a nice side effect, McKelvey said.
“No one cares what you look like if your code compiles,” he said Wednesday. “It is one of the most accepting fields.”
Source: bizjournals.com
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Republica’s Founders
September 12, 2018
When we set out on this journey on November 13, 2006, we had no idea what was ahead of us. We were two (younger) guys with a drive to build something great. Early on, with the help of our team members, we carefully crafted the 14 Principles that have guided Republica these 4,322 days.
And what a ride it has been!
We’ve enjoyed great triumphs and experienced heart-aching loss. We’ve been fiercely entrepreneurial and nimble and have always made an effort to give back to the community. We’ve grown, evolved, and learned from many mistakes along the way.
Our clients have been incredible. They’ve been our partners on this journey. We’ve accomplished so much with them and for them. They’ve allowed us to do groundbreaking work, and we’ve been so proud when that work has received national or global industry accolades. We are so grateful that they have chosen us.
And then there’s our team. The Republica family. Together, we’ve shared so much, including thousands of cafecitos. Many of us have been together through thick and thin for years. And others have joined us more recently. Everyone is part of the story.
Now, the story evolves. The family grows.
We’ve been approached over the years by potential suitors; including holding companies and private equity firms. We would always listen, but it never felt right. We knew that if and when we were to consider some sort of alliance it would have to be on the right terms, with the right people. We knew we would only want a partner that would allow us to keep doing what we love, yet give us a global platform to grow and scale. Maintaining our independence, our team, and our secret sauce, our familial culture, have always been paramount.
We’re beyond excited to inform you that we feel we have found that partner.
We will be joining forces with one of the world’s top marketing and communications companies, Havas. As part of this new venture, we become Havas’ lead multicultural agency partner in the United States.
You may ask why, or why now? The answer is simple. Why not. We recently reached our pinnacle, something we’d worked hard to achieve for years. We’re now Ad Age’s number one independent U.S. multicultural agency. Albeit a fantastic milestone, we can’t rest on our laurels.
As our industry experiences the most significant disruption of our lifetime, we believe that joining forces now with Havas makes perfect sense.
Havas is a global, transformational leader in creative, media, data and analytics. And its parent company, Vivendi, founded in 1835 in Paris, is one of the world’s leading media and entertainment conglomerates, also owning Universal Music Group, France’s Canal +, and Gameloft, among other major assets.
We thought long and hard about this decision.
One of the factors we’re most excited about is the new growth opportunities and many expanded benefits we’ll now be able to offer our employees.
In closing, so many people deserve our gratitude today...our families, our friends and clients, and each individual that contributed in small and big ways to this dream. You know who you are and we thank you all.
And lastly, our name. We will be known to the world as Republica Havas.
We’re now part of this greater family, and we’re so excited to begin this new chapter of our journey, together.
Jorge A. Plasencia, Chairman & CEO
Luis Casamayor, President
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In 2006, Jorge A. Plasencia and Luis Casamayor noisily occupied the corner booth at a Miami eatery as they hashed out plans to build a new kind of agency. It was the same year Twitter launched and that Facebook was starting to reach the masses.
Countless espresso-fueled conversations and strategy sessions had culminated into an important narrative: there was a seismic multicultural and digital shift taking place, and most agencies weren't addressing it.
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